


I'm Getting Tired

by cattesaber



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cancer, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 04:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30066960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattesaber/pseuds/cattesaber
Summary: Cauldron is known. Rebecca expected the consequences, whatever they were. She accepted them.This was a surprise.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	I'm Getting Tired

Exhaustion dragged at her, weighing down as gravity and pressure. Every second just a little longer than it should have been. Physical exhaustion itself was strange. Rebecca hadn’t felt it in years, but now her immunity was gone, like her strength.

This was her punishment. What the brightest minds of Earth Bet thought up just for her.

They’d found out a way to block the connection to the agent. Make the cape an ordinary person again. Human experiments were okay when America was ordering them - but not anyone else. Rebecca had studied history.

Legend resigned of his own free will, but even so he was ‘innocent’ of the crimes of Cauldron - however wilfully blind he was at the end. They didn’t punish him. Eidolon was the strongest cape in the world, second to _Scion._ They didn’t dare take his power away and risk the casualties. Alexandria - she knew all the crimes of Cauldron. She did them. Wasn’t as strong as Eidolon but still _useful_.

Alexandria got a gilded cage, better than most people would have gotten. Better than what she had given to the case 53s. Yet, frankly, she didn’t care. The loss of her powers hurt her much more.

The fact Cauldron didn’t come to help her wasn’t as surprising. Doctor Mother had asked her to be there, had asked her to not escape. Rebecca had thought she was flying to her death, not wispy gas that would crawl into her lungs and her brain.

She could do nothing of importance, not anymore, unless her jailers decided otherwise. She had books, magazines, limited access to the internet - but she was useless. Only able to watch the time tick down until the end of the world.

Rebecca sighed quietly, then coughed into her hand when it caught. She frowned, eyes distant. The books on the shelves were ignored for another day.

* * *

Time marched ever forward, whatever she thought of it. The Simurgh attacked and she could do nothing to help as the Endbringer ripped buildings and people apart. Years worth of experience, powers or not, meant her feelings were kept to herself.

They were monitoring her, she knew. They didn’t get to see this.

She shifted back in the computer chair, almost _absently_ tugging on the too big jacket hanging on her shoulders She couldn’t think up any way to help, but that wasn’t new. She couldn’t even stop an Endbringer when she had all of her power.

The words blurred on the screen a little more as her head started to throb. Pain. It was what it was. Rebecca stood, and turned away, looking out towards the window instead.

This was just more of what she had been trying to do for years, in the end. Trying to save the world - whatever the cost. Even the cost to her. Even those lives. Even if she couldn’t directly help, anymore.

* * *

Her hands were folded neatly in her lap. She didn’t get up.

“Alexandria...” Legend trailed off. He was here to find more about Cauldron, that much was obvious. The man still couldn’t hide his own plans. Their other leads must have dried up - Contessa was _very_ good at that.

“What?” Rebecca looked at him - Legend frowned back, and she still could see that even through the blurriness of her vision. She didn’t sigh, if only just about, and the edges of her jacket brushed against her thighs where she sat. It was a little looser still, even when she wore two shirts underneath it.

“Rebecca... please. Help us, you _know_ what we need. For the people you’ve hurt.” Legend pleaded. Charismatic, as always, when he tried. An old friend of hers that the thinkers put forward as someone she would talk to. Rebecca knew how this worked - she used to be head of the PRT, did they think she just _forgot_?

She shook her head. “You know I won’t say anything. There’s no point in you being here.” Rebecca picked up the glass of water on the table next to her and drank the dregs left inside of it. Her mouth, her lips were dry, and she knew well enough all the water on earth wasn’t enough.

It took Keith five more minutes to give up. She must have been slacking off. Rebecca leaned further into the seat and stared blankly at the door. How much longer, Contessa? Doctor Mother?

* * *

A muscle in her arm twitched even when she dug her thumb into it to stop it. She clenched and unclenched her fist. Rebecca stared out of the window, knowing exactly what was beyond it - high rise towers like the one she sat in, rows and rows of them. Metal shining in the sun. She couldn’t see that much anymore, the world fuzzy even inches away from her eyes. The view was a lost cause.

Rebecca shifted in the chair, carefully pressing a hand to her chest as she sucked in air. Calmly, quietly breathing, even if it felt like it didn’t work. She was lightheaded, dizzy when she stood, and never hungry anymore.

No one had noticed - no one had seen, but she doubted they were looking for what she knew was happening. If any of the Cauldron employees, customers, or experiments had told the PRT about the vials’ healing properties they didn’t put two and two together. Eidolon, Legend hadn’t mentioned anything either.

They were killing her, as surely as the cancer was. It had been years, but it was free to creep around inside of her now. In her blood, her chest - she could almost feel it growing.

* * *

The last day, when breathing stung and even sitting up got her dizzy, she didn’t get out of bed. It wasn’t worth it. She stayed there instead, the covers wrapped around her tightly. Warm. The room was flickers of light and dark, eyes too blurry to give her any details. She’d long memorised her room before it had gotten to this point, knowing it was coming. Rebecca knew she was going to die soon when she looked down and saw her hands as smudges of blueish-grey.

She was exhausted. How long had she even been running from the end? From fifteen and running after any way to live - to now. Her forties. Luckier than some.

Sometimes, someone in the room talked to her. Hero talked to her cheerfully. Contessa acted how she usually did. Only one of them could have been there, and as far as she knew neither was.

It didn’t matter anymore. Her eyes closed, and she counted her breaths. Not many. It was - fine.

She lost count, and let the thoughts drift away on the wind.

She’d had enough, now.

Rebecca stilled.


End file.
